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In the late 1920s, my grandfather was imprisoned in Palestine for plotting to overthrow the British regime. Undoubtedly he was plotting to overthrow the British regime, but given the efficacy with which he carried out various anti-capitalist schemes during the time that I knew him, in this case his offense probably consisted of something like handing out leaflets.

In any case, he was held in jail for a year at Akko Prison (also known as Acre). During that time, he occupied himself, among other activities, with carving sandstone with his fingernails. Here is a bronze cast of one of the pieces he carved–it’s been on a farm in Israel for decades but my father finally managed to get ahold of it and have copies made.

I would say “note the Communist iconography,” but since it consists of nothing but Communist iconography, such an admonition would be superfluous.

We went through his papers after he died; they were full of letters that ran to dozens of pages predicting the imminent demise of the capitalist octopus and the imperialist running dog. (At least that’s what the letters in English said; my Yiddish wasn’t really up to the level of rhetoric of which he was capable.)

This was my father’s side of the family. My mother’s side includes my grandmother, who was married nine times, and a great-uncle who was the first serial killer ever to be convicted when authorities matched the hair under his fingernails with his victims’ hair. He’s one of the waxes in the wax museum episode of The Twilight Zone.

I believe this convergence of influences explains much, if not all, of my character.

Like this:

I spent last night at E.S.’s apartment in Brooklyn, because he had a residency interview this morning at a hospital much closer to his place than to mine. He left for the interview at some ungodly hour but very considerately let me sleep in. Eventually I awoke, showered, got dressed, and tried to leave, only to find that the door wouldn’t open.

It was unclear to me whether the door was somehow locked from the outside–I don’t have keys–or just viciously stuck, but I pulled on it as hard as I reasonably could in as many different directions as I could, and it remained closed. I could have yanked on it with all my might, but E.S. has a complicated relationship with his landlords as it is, and I didn’t want to complicate it further.

I did, however, want to go home.

I called E.S. in the vain hope that he’d be on a break from his interviews and could tell me where extra keys were or how to unstick the door; no such luck–I got his voice mail. Then I tried to resign myself to spending the day locked in his apartment, with no food and no cable. It would be horrible: I would spend the whole day building up resentment, and then when he got home we would have our first fight. I started making phone calls to the people I had plans with during the day letting them know that I probably wouldn’t be able to make it, as I was locked in an apartment in Brooklyn.

Then I saw the fire escape.

So I opened the window and climbed out, only to find that the metal of the fire escape was terrifyingly pitted and discolored. I’m not particularly afraid of heights in most situations, but when I’m three stories high and my only support is made up of narrow slats of rickety iron and it’s raining, I’ll make an exception.

However, given the alternative, I figured it was worth risking breaking my neck. Moving at the snail’s pace my terror kept me to, I managed eventually to get down the incredibly steep stairs to the second floor of the fire escape.

Where the way to get down involved a thin wet ladder that ended ten feet above the ground.

Furthermore, even if I’d been able to work up the guts to climb down the ladder–I will point out that I had a heavy bag on my shoulder–it was so blocked by various metal bars at weird angles that nobody but a Hollywood stunt man would have been able to get onto the damn thing. Add to that the big and many-angled plastic toy at the bottom, belonging surely to the young child of the landlords, and you had a situation that was beyond my power to overcome.

I started to inch back up the stairs, figuring that even without cable or food, an apartment with high-speed internet access was a better place to spend the day than a wet fire escape, when I remembered that E.S.’s sister lived on the second floor, and that I was in fact right in front of her window. Praying that she hadn’t left for work yet, I tapped on the pane. She appeared from the other room, looking at me with the most perplexed expression I’ve seen on her face in the course of our brief acquaintance. She opened the window, I explained what had happened, she let me in and out of her apartment, I left the building, I got on the subway, and I went home.

E.S. was profusely apologetic when I spoke to him later in the day. He had in fact unthinkingly locked the door behind him, and it was in fact a lock that couldn’t be unlocked from the inside without a key.

I thought about starting our first fight anyway, but instead I just took a nap.

Like this:

Not too long ago, the New York City subway moved from a token system to a swipe card system. (Those of you who live in New York must forgive me, as you already know everything in this paragraph, but the rest of the story doesn’t make sense unless you know how the subway system works.) The kind of card I usually get is the unlimited ride card, which can be used any number of times during the period it covers (a day, a week, or a month); to avoid its being used to get more than one person onto the subway at a time, once you’ve swiped it through the card reader at the turnstile, it’s invalid for the next eighteen minutes. This is not a problem during the ordinary course of events; when things go wrong, however–when you accidentally go through the downtown subway entrance at a station where there’s no inside transfer to the uptown subway, say–you are at the mercy of the station attendants, who are more capricious in their whims than any Greek god ever was. If they choose to let you through, then you’re fine; if not, you have to 1) wait eighteen minutes while train after train goes by or 2) jump the turnstile and risk arrest.

I promise this is relevant.

One day a few years ago, after spending the day running errands, I went to take the subway back home. I swiped my card, but before I could go through the revolving gate on my way in, somebody else came through on his way out. I tried to enter, but no go. I swiped my card again, but got the dreaded “JUST USED” message. Since there was no station attendant at this entrance (and since this was one of the entrances at which there are gates instead of turnstiles, making illegal entry impossible), I had to go back up and find another entrance at which there was a station attendant. I did so, and explained what had just happened. She asked to see my card. I gave it to her; she checked it and barked, “You just used this.”

Trying to keep my rage in check, I said, “Yes, I explained to you that I–”

“You didn’t use it at this station. I can’t let you through.”

“But I did, I told you that I–”

“I’m not letting you through. Next customer, please.”

“But I–”

“Next!”

I had had it. My relationship with my then-boyfriend N.T. was at the height of its dysfunction, meaning that my emotions were running at a fever pitch all the time anyway. There was clearly no reasoning with this monster in human form, so I went for it.

I jumped the turnstile.

That is, I tried to jump the turnstile. In actuality, I didn’t jump quite high enough, and my feet caught on the bar, which sent me tumbling down in a heap on the other side.

Along with the gallon of paint I was carrying in each hand.

The integrity of the paint cans (blue in the left hand, purple in the right) was of course not enough to survive the fall; the lids came off and paint spilled out all over me.

Broken and defeated and bruised and covered in paint, I left the subway station, crossed the street into Central Park, cried for eighteen minutes, came back, got on the subway, and went home.

Like this:

As you can perhaps tell from the fact that I’m writing this, I survived my Christmas trip into the wilds of New Jersey.

E.S., his sister, my dog, and I drove for about two hours–which is to say that E.S. drove, my driver’s license having expired months ago, and just as well, really, given the number of car accidents I caused when I was driving–to get to his parents’ house on the Jersey shore (where they had recently moved from Iowa).

This is the second time I’ve ever met a boyfriend’s parents, but the first time can hardly count, as it was the parents of my ex, N.T., and I met them in the waiting room of Bellevue Hospital, where N.T. was having surgery–he was having surgery in the hospital, that is, not in the waiting room–and the terror of meeting each other was second in all of our minds to the terror that somebody would accidentally remove one of N.T.’s limbs. Which, in retrospect, would really have been doing the world a service, but that’s neither here nor there.

In any case, E.S.’s parents were, thank God, utterly wonderful and generally unintimidating people. His father looked at me for a few moments in such a way as to fill me with anxiety–you know, the kind of look that can be communicating either “I think you’re a fine match for my son” or “I can see right through you, you fraud” but you can’t quite tell which–but then luckily my dog A. jumped up on him, both melting his heart and shielding me from further scrutiny. Then I complimented E.S.’s mother’s furniture, and all was well. The whole thing was as traditional a Christmas as one could want: we talked about the weather, we ate hors d’oeuvres, we looked at embarrassing pictures of E.S. as a child, we ate Christmas dinner, we opened presents, we ate pie, we talked about the real estate business they were opening, we pulled out their custom-made Ouija board and contacted their spirit guide.

E.S. had suggested that this might happen. Apparently, it’s the job of this entity–who is known, by the way, as “28”–to greet the recently deceased upon their arrival in the afterlife. However, he’s also very interested in the spiritual progress of those of us who have yet to shuffle off this mortal coil; he’s been sharing his insights with E.S.’s parents (and, through them, with E.S. and his sister) for almost 30 years now. His communications while I was there were concerned partially with E.S.’s parents’ failure to talk to him in a while–it had been some five weeks–but mostly with E.S.’s sister’s path in life. He gave her what seemed to me to be a lot of really good advice.

At one point, somebody asked me if I had any questions; of course, there were any number of things I was dying to know, but somehow I couldn’t quite see my way through to asking about them, especially as many of them concerned the first-born child of the people wielding the planchette. So I said, “No, nothing in particular–though if 28 has anything to say to me, I’d be happy to listen”; I hoped thereby to get some good advice while circumventing the awkwardness of asking questions of a cardinal number.

Twenty-eight, however, saw right through my ploy; he bade me welcome and told me to read the transcripts of his other communications (which run, evidently, to some 1,500 typed pages) so I could get to know him better. Then he went back to castigating E.S.’s parents for neglecting him for so long, and then eventually those of us who live in New York piled into the car and went back there. (I’m figuring that 28 is more or less omnipresent, so, though I met him in New Jersey, he probably lives in New York too, and was almost certainly in the car.)

This was, in fact, the second communication I’ve ever received from the spirit world; the first was the time in high school when I went to a meditation group and somebody channeling St. Catherine of Siena told me I was an old soul and that I had to develop my psychic powers.

Clearly, the lesson here is that I should avoid all communications with entities from the beyond, because first they will tell me things of no use to me and then they will give me homework.

Like this:

Today, E.S. and I will finish making the gay gingerbread house we’ve been working on. (Fear not, photos will be posted.)

Tomorrow, we will go to New Jersey for Christmas.

Let me clarify: tomorrow, we will go to the house of his parents (whom I’ve never met before) in New Jersey for Christmas.

I’m spending Christmas with his parents. Compared to this, the use of the word “boyfriend” pales into insignificance.

Let’s hope I can manage not to flee the country in terror before then.

Of course, since the national threat level was raised on Sunday from Elevated to High, fleeing the country may no longer be an option for those of us who aren’t straight upper-middle class WASP Republicans.

Like this:

Last night I went to David’s birthday dinner with my boyfriend (oh, fuck, there I go again) E.S.

I’d been looking forward to the event for several days, when shortly beforehand I found out that David had also invited T.H. This meant that I would be going to a party with my boyfriend (shit) and the man with whom, not to put too fine a point on it, I cheated on him the last time he was my boyfriend. (This is an oversimplification, but it’ll do for the present.)

“You invited WHO?!?!?” I shrieked electronically and ungrammatically at David.

“I forgot,” he said. “The idea of you and T.H. together makes no sense to me, so I never remember that it ever happened.”

So now I had to figure out how to handle the situation. I could just keep mum about the whole thing. But since T.H. reads my blog, he would know who E.S. was, but E.S., though he knows that T.H. exists, would have no idea that that’s who he was sitting across from; this seemed an unfair and disrespectful state of affairs. Which meant I’d have to tell E.S. that T.H. would be there. Not that there was any real problem here, because, as charming and delightful as T.H. is, E.S. is really a far more suitable boyfriend for me; still, the thought of the conversation I’d have to have filled me with agony and anguish. My past behavior towards E.S. has been reprehensible enough that I fear a confrontation with it in the same way that Dorian Grey might fear a confrontation with a certain portrait.

I agonized and anguished about how to tell him–the more so because, being totally broke, I’m taking time off from therapy, so I couldn’t get my therapist to write my lines for me–and finally, Sunday night, I called E.S. and, in the course of our conversation, said, “um, there’s something slightly awkward about David’s party.”

“Let me guess,” he said. “T.H. will be there.”

Stunned, I asked, “How did you know?”

“Well, I knew they were friends, so when you said there’d be something awkward, that leapt to mind immediately. Don’t worry. It’s fine. I think.”

Slightly terrified at how intuitive my boyfriend (drat) is, I hung up and went shopping for a birthday present.

In the event, the guests at the dinner were seated at a long table. E.S. and I arrived slightly late, and the only seats were at the opposite end of the table from T.H. (and, incidentally, next to this man, whom I was glad to get to know a little better).

Though I was sad not to be able to participate in the conversation happening at the other end of the table, I was not sorry to leave the portrait wrapped up.

Like this:

All the early signs of incipient homosexuality people offered in the comments to the last post–and, incidentally, all the early signs of incipient homosexuality I might offer–are as nothing compared to those exhibited by my friend K.N.

I offer two stories.

1. In kindergarten one day, K.N. stood up all of a sudden and burst into screaming, bawling tears because he realized that his underwear didn’t match his socks. Ordinarily, if he was wearing green underwear, he made sure to put on green socks; red with red; and so on. But he’d gotten distracted that morning and accidentally put on socks of a different color from his underwear.

All efforts to assure him this was not actually a problem were vain; he didn’t stop crying until his teacher called his mother to come and get him. She took him home, waited while he changed, and drove him back to school.

2. In junior high, K.N. was in class with a boy he thought was a bad dresser. K.N. would buy boxes of No. 2 pencils, sharpen them to razor-sharp points, lie in wait for this kid on his way home, jump out from behind the bushes, and stab the kid in the back with a pencil as hard as he could.

Like this:

Like a fool, I waited until the last minute to get my tickets to Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and so I ended up having to see it at a theater on the east side. (For those of you who don’t know Manhattan, crossing from the west side to the east side or vice versa, while not physically too difficult, is the psychological equivalent of swimming the English Channel naked and bleeding when it’s full of sharks.)

In any event, as I sat knitting on the crosstown bus, a boy of six or seven across the aisle spoke to me. He asked, “What are you knitting?”

Now, I do not ordinarily like to be spoken to when I’m knitting on public transportation (though being spoken about is a different matter entirely–there’s no joy quite like that of hearing people whisper, “What’s he knitting, it’s so complicated, I used to be able to crochet but I would never have the patience to do something like that”) and I also hate children. One would think these two facts in combination should have inspired me to a stony silence, but somehow I didn’t mind.

“A glove,” I answered condescendingly, glad to be able to broaden the child’s horizons.

“I just finished a scarf,” he said, “in fisherman’s rib. Now I’m working on a hat in a cable stitch.”

As soon as I recovered my equilibrium, I responded. What I said was, “That sounds terrific. Good luck.”